We are six months old today!

Can you believe it?  Progressive Blogic is six months old today. Back on November 1st, Molly and I would have been thrilled to get 12,000 page views for the entire first year. Well, last month (April, 2011) we more than doubled that in a single month and have surpassed 66,000 page views overall. Holy keystrokes, Batman. I think they might like us.

By the way, Molly comes up the monthly banner photographs and designed the layout of the site. – aren’t they great? Kudos to her for all the hard work and for being the best blogging partner on the planet!

Thank you to everyone who has supported us and to everyone who has visited Progressive Blogic. You’re all amazing. We are looking forward to bringing you more progressive politics and pop culture from the heart of the great Midwest in the days, weeks, months, and years to come.

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Calling mayday for May Day in the USA

Normally, May Day (May 1st) is recognized and celebrated as International Workers Day. It began in Australia in 1856 as a way to commemorates the eight-hour work day and took root on May 1st after the Haymarket affair in Chicago in 1886.

This year in the United States, May Day can be better described as the international distress call day (mayday) for the organized labor movement due to the ongoing assault from conservative politicians and their plutocratic money interests. We have seen worker’s rights be simply eviscerated in Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and elsewhere all in the guise of government financial reform. Those who ran on and were elected to create jobs have chosen instead to skewer the rights of those already working and of those who are unemployed. I doubt this is what many voters remotely bargained for.

Today, on May 1, 2011, please take the time to remember those early activists who won our labor rights many decades ago. Let’s also resolve to honor their efforts by not capitulating to the onslaught of brutal plutocracy in the United States. Attend rallies, write, phone, or email your local, state, and national representatives and tell them you support restoring lost labor rights and strengthening remaining ones. And above all, do not give up hope. As Andy Dufresne wrote in The Shawshank Redemption:

“…hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

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